Diamondbacks Arizona Fall League Hitters Statcast Data Breakdown

Evaluating the Statcast batted ball data for Tommy Troy and Kristian Robinson in the Arizona Fall League.

Last week, I published a piece on Gino Groover and his lack of extra-base hit contact. We’ll continue the Statcast series on the other two hitters the Arizona Diamondbacks are sending to the Arizona Fall League, Tommy Troy and Kristian Robinson.

Before getting started, I have to add a small sample size disclaimer. The only parks with Statcast data to work with include Salt River Fields (home games), Camelback Ranch, and Goodyear Ballpark.

Tommy Troy

Troy started the fall league 1-for-25 with 11 strikeouts but had a 3 XBH performance on October 17th to snap it. He’s now hitting .323 with 2 home runs and a .946 OPS for the entire fall. Since that day, he’s hitting .392 with 8 extra-base hits (5 doubles, 1 triple, 2 home runs). It’s been a somewhat sustained run of success expected for the No. 12 overall pick in the 2023 draft.

Looking at his Statcast data, the first takeaway is he’s consistently hitting the ball in the air. He sports just a 31.0% ground ball rate in 29 balls in play and an average launch angle of 20.2°. Troy is a gap-to-gap hitter who punishes fastballs up in the zone, so this batted ball contact isn’t too surprising. His percentage of contact with a launch angle between 8 and 32° (sweet spot) is at 37.9%, higher than the MLB average of 33.2%.

In terms of the ideal contact for generating extra-base hits and driving in runs, Troy has 4 barrels. All 4 barrels have resulted in extra-base hits (2 doubles, 1 triple, 1 home run). He has more barrels than Groover (2) and Robinson (1) combined.

There is a lot of weak contact in the profile which hurts the overall profile. There was a stretch where he had 12 straight batted balls with an exit velocity below 94 MPH. He had five hits over that stretch, including a couple of weak grounders that got through the infield. However, he snapped that stretch on Saturday with a no-doubt home run in the first inning. There’s no data on that particular batted ball, but given that it left the park with plenty of room I counted it as a barrel.

It’s looking clear that offensively we can call it a successful run in the Fall League for who should be a consensus Top 5 prospect in the organization. It will be interesting to see if the team gives him the aggressive assignment of Double-A Amarillo in 2025. In my opinion, they should because he’s learned the lessons he’s needed this season when it comes to handling failure and lengthy slumps that a hitter learns their first year in the system.

Kristian Robinson

Robinson is trending positively in the fall league. He’s hitting .320 with a .874 OPS. The strikeout rate is down to 25.6% in 58 PA while maintaining a walk rate north of 10%.

The biggest strength is his ability to make hard contact, registering the hardest-hit batted ball of the trio at 110.2 MPH. Of his 21 balls put into play, 12 registered an exit velocity north of 95 MPH. It shows up in his line drive and fly ball contact, with an average exit velocity of 95.4 MPH on such contact. That hasn’t quite translated to barrels, as his only one came on a home run over the batter’s eye at Salt River Fields.

However, the contact also includes a lot of weak ground ball contact that negatively skews the averages. His ground ball rate is 47.6% while his fly ball rate is only 14.8%. Some of that has to do with the fact a third of his batted ball contact is classified as line drives. He’s still one of the fastest players in the circuit, registering a max sprint speed of 31.0 ft/s, so a ground ball rate that high isn’t necessarily disqualifying.

Depending on his ability to make contact, Robinson profiles as a 4th outfielder who is a perfect complement to the left-hand hitting outfielders on the 40-man roster.